MovieChat Forums > The Lost Weekend Discussion > Wick ...

Wick ...

posted 19 years ago by jescci
10 replies | jump to latest

... as in candle wick? Was this name chosen to represent the enabler in the character - as a wick enables a candle to burn? Don't recall the concept of enabling being approached in the movie. Maybe the filmakers thought it was an unnecesarry plot complication. Maybe the concept wasn't understood as well then as it is today. And yet if the character's name was chosen on purpose, it implies an understanding.

Engrossing film that probably did a lot of people a lot of good, but my heavens what a pat ending.

What say there, Fuzzy Britches? Feel like talking?

[–] flix4me 19 years ago

Wick was Don's brother's name in the novel, no explanation given, it was just his name. No explanation why main character's name was Don, either. As to enabling as a plot point, I don't think people understaood the concept at the time of the book or film.

[–] telegonus 19 years ago

More likely his mother's maiden name. This was a common practice at the time (not so common now), using the mother's maiden name as the son's first one (Taylor Holmes, Prescott Bush, Shelby Foote, etc.).

[–] ykymf 19 years ago

I think they definitely dealt with enabling - the girlfriend and the brother clearly struggled with it

[–] muzilon 14 years ago

I wondered if it was short for "Wickstead" or something like that. Interesting point about the mother's maiden name though.

[–] telegonus 14 years ago

Could be Wickstead. I was thinking more along the lines of something like Van Wyk, a Dutch name, common enough in the New York of the period the movie was set in and with the genteel origins of Don and Wick Birnam. So if their mother's maiden name was Van Wyk that was Wick's actual first name, shortened to the easier to pronounce Wick. Just a guess on my part.

[–] cmashieldscapting 12 years ago

I wondered if it had symbolic meaning and pictured the wick in a kerosene lamp which absorbs the liquid and burns to shed light.

[–] telegonus 12 years ago

Maybe so. I hadn't thought of that.

[–] Druff 9 years ago

Now you need to figure out Flap from Terms of Endearment.

[–] goldenagefilmstv (178) 10 months ago

Or Wicklow?

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]